Dear Staff Colleagues 
  
I wish you a 2023 full of exciting challenges and meaningful achievements for you as well as for your contributions to our Faculty community. As many of us return to work from our holiday breaks, I trust that you have been replenished and energised as we settle into the new year.  
  
In the Faculty of Health Sciences, 2023 marks the full return to pre-COVID-19 contact teaching, learning and research with the requirement that all staff now fulfil their responsibilities on campus, following a two-year period of hybrid or online working for some staff. Line managers must ensure that all equipment is returned to UCT premises and accounted for in the relevant asset registers as appropriate.

However, we recognise that there may be exceptional circumstances requiring hybrid working arrangements, such as insufficient office space to accommodate full teams on campus. Your attention is drawn to the UCT communication from the Acting Executive Director: Human Resources, Mr Bongani Ndaba, dated 1 December 2022, with further details. This communication also states that the interim policy on remote working allowance has lapsed. 

Colleagues, our preparedness to re-insert ourselves in the workplace is a shared responsibility. Many have embraced this wholeheartedly for a while now, without any negative impact on their health as well as resulting in a positive impact on team cohesion, engagement and service delivery. This has been particularly important in areas with high levels of client-facing work. There is now a reasonable expectation that each colleague has understood the rationale and importance of being vaccinated and has taken the necessary steps to do so, or has made a conscious informed decision not to be vaccinated.   
 
As the Deanery, we look forward to a campus filled once again with students and our team of colleagues constantly working together to advance our mandates in teaching, learning, research and service delivery towards a healthier society. 
 
I wish you all an incredible 2023. 

Kaise ke gangans
Associate Professor Lionel Green-Thompson
Dean: Faculty of Health Sciences